Mulches are commonly applied over grass seed beds. Mulches help to increase seed germination and decrease soil erosion allowing seeds to become firmly established in the seeded area. Mulches typically consist of straw, wood shavings, or paper. In the prior art, mulches are mixed with water and agitated in a holding tank, and then sprayed onto a seed bed. Some mulches are woven into blankets that are designed to be laid down over seed beds. Some mulches are chemically bonded natural fiber spray-applied mulches. These mulches use a vegetable gum binder such as guar gum to bind together natural fibers.
Most mulches are loose configurations of unbonded fibers that easily wash away. Paper-based mulches tend to bond into a paper mache-like mat that inhibits oxygen and sunlight transfer, and the ability of seedlings to emerge through the mulch, affecting vegetation establishment. Chemically-bonded mulch forms an almost impenetrable layer over the seed bed that is poor at passing oxygen and water through to the seed bed.
Horticultural/Agricultural growers, gardeners, landscape operators, flower growers, and the like produce a wide variety of cultivated plants. Many such crops are grown from seed. The sizes, shapes, and physical characteristics of the various kinds of seeds are as varied as the number of crops produced therefrom.
Producers of such cultivated crops encounter a variety of challenges in handling and distributing such seed, as well as with sowing of such seed in suitable growing media. Certain seed may desirably be sowed by a broadcast method if the seed were compatible with broadcast application. For example, grass seed for lawns is desirably broadcast, but the low density and generally non-aerodynamic shape of some grass seed can limit the range of such broadcast, and make such seed susceptible to being blown about by wind, or washed away by surface water, even if initially well placed in a good seeding application.
Another difficulty encountered in sowing seed is that the seed may be so small as to be difficult to handle, thereby to place properly-spaced seeds at a desired spacing as to make cost-effective use of the seed, thereby to produce a crop of the related plants without using any more seed than necessary, thus to gain maximum benefit from the amount of seed used.
While small seed may be efficiently handled by industrial equipment especially designed for handling such seed, typically the user of such seed also handles various other types of seed; and may be unable to justify the cost of such specialty seed-handling equipment. Rather, the seed user typically has a limited range of seed handling equipment which must be capable of being used and/or adapted to handle and apply all the types of seeds being used by that user. Where the seed itself can be adapted to the equipment, specialty seed can be handled without need for any specialized equipment.
Even where the seed may be sown by hand, such as seedling or bedding trays or pots, some seeds are so small as to be difficult for the sower/user to effectively manipulate and control by hand. Typical of such difficult to handle seeds are seeds of lettuce, carrots, the cabbage family, ground cherries, and alfalfa. Many flower seeds are equally small and/or difficult to handle and/or manipulate, for example poppy seed.
A properly conditioned soil has advantageous soil chemistry in combination with advantageous soil texture. Thus, in addition to providing specific plant nutrients, soil users also use products that modify basic soil chemistry, and soil texture.
Basic soil chemistry is modified by adding to the soil, for example, calcium products to provide pH control, and flyash or like products to provide pH control as well as micronutrients.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,761,423 relates to a seed dressing applied to winter wheat, bean, pea or sorghum seed to protect the seed from insect or fungal damage. The seed dressing comprises animal, vegetable or mineral oil, an emulsifier, dyestuff and water.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,368,591 relates to seeds with an active ingredient and between 0.035 and 1.80 g of titanium dioxide per kg of seed in either the rutile or anatase form. The titanium dioxide serves, in conjunction with a coloring agent, to provide a bright, opaque coating to the seed.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,881,343 and 4,853,429 relate to a seed colorant useful especially in coloring seeds to distinguish same from the seeds to be used for foods is formed of an aqueous medium such as water, a dye and/or pigment of a desired hue, and a binder resin composed of the salt of chitosan and an organic acid. The seed colorant may additionally contain spherical resin particles.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,087,475 relates to a process for the film-coating of seed materials. A batch of seed materials is film coated with a gas and water permeable, thin, adherent, uniform non-phytotoxic continuous liquid surface film of a polymeric film former.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,543,321 relates to a sterilized plant culture medium comprising a dye in an amount which imparts a visible color to the culture medium and which permits seed germination is provided which is useful for attracting children, for observing and studying seed germination, root and shoot formation and whole plant development, and for color-coding plant cultures.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,308,653 and 5,192,587 relate to a comminuted wood that is converted to a colored wood product useful as a mulch. The product is produced by feeding a comminuted wood into a screw conveyer. The comminuted wood is contacted in the lower end of the conveyor by a liquid color-imparting agent, preferably an aqueous solution containing iron oxide pigment, carbon black pigment or a mixture of both pigments. After contacting, rotation of the auger draws the moist colored wood product towards the upper end, permitting runoff of excess liquid agent, which returns by gravity to the basin for further contacting with newly-fed comminuted wood. Colored wood product discharges through a chute at the upper end of the conveyor for further drying, if necessary.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,781 relates to a compacted agglomerate in the form of a pillow-shaped briquette. It contains finely pulverized paper and a fertilizer in the form of a granular powder or liquid. The pulverized paper may be paper dust. A dye may also be added to provide a more colorful product.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,076,299 relates to mulching pellets made from finely divided paper and wood, a clay binder, a highly water absorbent natural polymer, and a surfactant. The pellets absorb at least four times their weight in water. The pellets substantially reduce water run-off and soil erosion as compared to other mulch pellets.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,021,598 relates to a pourable, granular paper mulch product. A dye or a combination of dyes are used which will impart to the mulch product a color which resembles that of actual grass, a green color.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,853,541 relates to a degradable agricultural mulch, mat or ground cover including cotton linters fibers, hardwood kraft pulp fibers, softwood kraft pulp fibers, and a water holdout material which is strong enough to be laid mechanically and is 100% photo- or biodegradable.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,585,150 relates to a biodegradable mulch product comprising sheets or finely divided particles of cellulosic fibrous material bonded together with a bonding agent comprising a water-based bonding adhesive and compressed to form a laminar layer, said compressed laminar layer being cut into mulch-size pieces that simulate natural tree mulches in appearance, density and rate biodegradation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,156 relates to a method for controlling the color of mulch for retarding the fading of the color of the mulch and/or restoring the color of mulch that has faded due to prolonged exposure to actinic light and ambient weather conditions be applying a brown color-control solution to the surface of the mulch.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,480 relates to a viscous liquid containing dye and possibly further additives is added to a package of hydraulic mulch material for hydraulic mulching. The viscous liquid and its additive are suitable to be later uniformly mixed through the hydraulic mulch during subsequent mixing and agitation with water prior to application, thereby eliminating the need for precoloring of the mulch material.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,067,140 relates to a mulch having finely divided fibers of paper coated with a wetting agent and preferably dyed a pleasing color such as green. To produce the mulch, finely divided fibers of paper are coated with a mixture of a solvent or carrier such as water, wetting agent and a dye. The finely divided fibers of paper are contacted with the mixture such as by tumbling the fibers of paper while spraying the mixture into the drum.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,021,598 relates to a pourable, granular paper mulch product including a granular solid comprising at least about 85% paper by weight and at least 6% water by weight, and having a settled density of at least about 15 pounds per cubic foot is prepared by comminuting paper, mixing the comminuting paper with water to form a pulp, extruding the pulp through a die orifice, chopping the extrudate to a length of less than about ⅛ inch to form granules, and drying the granules to achieve a final moisture content of from about 6% to about 13% by weight.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,890 relates to a dry seeding mulch having finely shredded or ground particles of waste paper mixed with a dry powdered chemical wetting agent and injected, after bagging, with a concentrated dye mixture which imparts color to the entire bag of mulch when mixed with water by the ultimate user. The dye is added to the finely shredded paper and the dye crystallizes and changes color.
The prior art does not teach a horticultural product, such as a seed or mulch that has a fragrance added to it. The prior art does not teach adding a dye to a coating of a seed.